Hairy

Well, we’ve come to the last week of May. June starts this weekend. I think this was one of the fastest months of my life, if only because my mother and I for some reason volunteered to make and decorate a wedding cake (which we really don’t do), and the culmination is finally coming together. The cake will be on the table on Saturday. It’s currently in the freezer, entirely undecorated. If I had a better camera on my phone, I’d say you could find pictures on Instagram (but I promise to remedy that, soon).

All month long, we’ve been talking about ways to get yourself out of a writing rut. We’ve discussed many of the methods I use myself, or have used in the past. Because of that, I think they might work for you—and I wanted to share them.

This week, however, we have two of the most important ways to keep yourself in the writing mind, even when you think your writing is nothing more than a rut itself.

Get a Haircut

I’ll be real honest with you. I might’ve chosen this title because I’ll finally be getting an actual haircut today, after spending over far too long with very shaggy hair. But I also have a very legitimate point here.

You need to get a fresh perspective on what you’re doing. You really do. You need to look at things with fresh eyes, with a new level of understanding. In fact, you might say you need to look at this as though you’re a different person altogether. Say, a person who just got a haircut.

It’s okay to take a break from writing. I’m always sure to tell that to every writer I know. If you’re not writing, it doesn’t mean you’re not a writer. It means you’re smart. You don’t want to burn out. But when you’re not writing because you’re in the rut, there’s a problem.

So don’t think of it as a rut, and look at your writing as though you’ve never seen it before. Look at it through editor’s eyes, through reader’s eyes, through any eyes but yours. Look at it from every angle except the one you’ve been using, and then make some decisions about it.

When you look at your work through fresh eyes, you’ll be able to see the things that need tweaking, the things that might need to change, and even the things that are amazing and that you should definitely keep. It’ll make a big difference, even if you don’t feel like it will.

Give it a try. Put on some rose colored glasses and take a new look at your work. See what you find. You never know until you try.

[love]

{Rani D.}